


Rebuilding Whitestone

by Amrynth



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Gals being pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 01:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8266924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amrynth/pseuds/Amrynth
Summary: When Pike and Cassandra deal with some very similar demons (not literal, in this case) it turns out they have a lot more in common than they thought.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Settiai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/gifts).



> This was a lot of fun to write and not really a couple I would have considered before getting my Femslash Ex assignment. Now I totally ship it.

Pike leaned on the pale stone of the window, watching the snow falling. It was thick enough to obscure the distant lights of the town so that only a soft glow came from the south. She leaned forward and breathed air on the cool glass where it could turn solid and finish hiding the world outside the castle. She uncurled from her seat and left the fogged window behind. 

Whitestone Castle seemed snugly tucked in a blanket of snow while she walked around inside it. There had been noise for the last week preparing for Winter’s Crest but the snow had forced a sudden stillness on the castle and the town. It could be the calm before the storm; it kept Pike up at night sometimes worrying that it was. What if Emon was only the beginning and the dragons would come for Whitestone? The survivors that Vox Machina had been able to bring to Whitestone were adapting to life as refugees but the meager supplies in Whitestone were stretched thin as it is. Add to that siege by the Chroma Conclave, she wasn’t sure they would make it.

Pike turned her feet toward the castle library, closing her door gently behind her. She enjoyed the freedom of sneaking around the castle when she wasn’t encumbered by her armor and slipped through the castle corridors without running into anyone. Although she liked to think it was because she was sneaky as Vax’ildan, really it was because so much of the castle staff was working on the kitchens to prepare for Winter’s Crest. 

Aside from the kitchens, where the white stone of Whitestone seemed to radiate heat with the constant fires going and the smell of sweets and cooking kept the gnome’s head spinning when she was there, the library was her favorite place in the castle. She and Cassandra had been working hard to restore many of the damaged and lost books since Pike had arrived at the castle. She liked the soft carpets that had been brought in and the squishy chairs that Cassandra had specifically made sure were short enough for the gnome cleric to sit comfortably in. Pike pushed her way through the door to the library, still trying to be stealthy as possible, and let the library embrace her. 

It was unusual for Pike to be the one aware of someone before they were aware of her. All the sneaking practice was paying off. She could hear someone else breathing; short, shuddery breaths like someone was in pain. 

“Hello?” Pike called out, announcing herself and dropping the pretense that she would ever be a rogue. 

The sound stopped almost instantly but there was a soft shuffling of cloth where she couldn’t quite see it. One single sniff and Pike felt the hairs stand on end on her neck as someone used a spell nearby. 

She should have worn her armor. Pike fingered her belt where her maul would usually be and she only had a small dagger on herself. Whitestone was supposed to be safe, the library was supposed to be safe. Vox Machina wouldn’t be here for several days still and she had nothing but Sarenrae to defend her from whoever was casting spells in her library. 

“Who’s there? Show yourself,” Pike said, firming up her voice and slipping the small dagger from its sheathe on her hip. 

And there was Cassandra, stepping out from behind the corner to look down at her. “Pike?”

“Oh.” Pike stared up at her dumbly for a moment, then looked at her drawn dagger. “Uh, sorry. I thought- I felt someone using magic and I thought…”

“I’m fine,” Cassandra said a little too quickly. She smiled but there was something not quite right about her expression. 

“Are you?” Pike sheathed her dagger.

“Of course. What would make you think I’m not?” Percy’s sister managed a more natural smile than before but she turned away and walked toward her favorite chair.

Cassandra de Rolo was tall even for a human, and, in Pike’s opinion, one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Willowy to the point of almost boyish slenderness, Cassandra had a habit of wearing breeches and tall boots with vests cinched tight at the waist to give the illusion of a more feminine figure. Her time living with the Briarwoods had not left her unscathed, her brown hair was streaked with white all throughout and there was a permanent sense of wariness about her appearance. 

Pike followed her to her own favorite chair, comfortably situated beside Cassandra’s. She could still feel the aura of some sort of magic around Cassandra and wasn’t ready to completely drop her defenses yet. 

“How come you’re in the library?” Pike asked, leaning on the arm of her chair to look up at Cassandra. 

“Oh.” Cassandra blushed and looked nervous for a moment. “I was looking up a spell in one of the books Mr. Gilmore left in the castle library.” 

“And you immediately tried it?”

“Wh-what? Oh,” Cassandra took a breath before continuing, “It’s just a minor illusion spell, it’s nothing to worry about.”

Pike’s eyebrows rose and she got to her feet, arms crossed. “Cassandra, you haven’t, have you?”

“Haven’t what?” Cassandra asked, hoping to evade the question by not understanding it. 

“Drop the illusion,” Pike suggested in a tone that had been known to maternally intimidate most of Vox Machina. 

“I-I’m fine,” Cassandra insisted and put a smile in place that she hoped would convince Pike that it was the truth. “I’ll let it go after Winter’s Crest.”

“Cass,” Pike said and uncrossed her arms, placing both of her hands on one of the human’s knees. “Cass what’s so important about Winter’s Crest? What’s so important that you won't let anyone actually see you?”

Cassandra looked down at Pike’s hands and then lifted her eyes to her face as she tried to find the words. “It- I have to be perfect,” Cassandra explained. Pike didn’t see it because she saw the good in everyone, but Cassandra had such evil to make up for and Percival would be coming back for the festival. 

“Cass…” Pike chewed on her lip, unsure what to say. Her blue eyes drifted down to her hands and she shifted from one foot to the other as she tried to come up with the right words. “Maybe drop the illusion?” 

“Pike I- what if I can’t make up for, what if I’m not good enough for him?” Cassandra asked, leaning down and putting her forehead on the top of Pike’s head. Her shoulders shook and she felt her eyes burn.

“Cassandra Johanna Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo,” Pike said, sounding fierce and moving so that she could look directly up at the young noblewoman. “You are Percy’s baby sister and he’ll think you’re perfect no matter what you do.”

Cassandra laughed, even though tears ran down her cheeks. Though she was crying, her eyes weren’t red and her countenance looked serene. “But I-”

“You survived, Cass, and that’s what you had to do. And it’s done now,” Pike said, reaching up to brush tears from her cheek with one hand. “Let go of the illusion, please?”

She could feel the magic of the illusion tingling beneath her hand. When Cassandra released the spell the sensation increased almost to a hum in her teeth and then dissipated and she was looking up into Cassandra’s red-eyed, sleep-deprived face. Pike smiled though and peered up at her. “There, you’re perfect again.”

Cassandra laughed again and tried to scrub a hand across her eyes but she didn’t want to break the point of contact with Pike. 

“How are you so good?” Cassandra asked, blue eyes looking into blue eyes. 

“Because I’m not,” Pike answered with a sad little smile. “So I have to try extra hard so I don’t let my family down.” She didn’t mean Wilhand. Although she didn’t want to let him down either, her family was Vox Machina. 

They were both quiet for a moment. Pike became very aware of how warm Cassandra’s leg was under her hand but had no inclination to move her hand. She enjoyed Cassandra’s warmth. Cassandra, meanwhile, was becoming intimately familiar with the patterns of Pike’s eyes. Without realizing it they leaned closer, Pike leaning up and Cassandra bending forward in her seat. 

Pike took a deep breath and smiled up at Cassandra before stepping away and leaving Cassandra’s knee cold and both of them slightly disappointed. “The best thing you can do before Percy gets here is get some sleep, Cass.”

There was a long silence that made Pike look back to Cassandra to make sure she was all right. She sat very still in her chair with her hands clasped together on her lap. 

“Cass?”

“I’m afraid to,” Cassandra admitted after a heartbeat too long. The knuckles of her clasped hands were white and trembled just slightly.

“Why?” Pike was fairly certain that she knew why Cassandra was afraid or at least could guess that it had to do with the Briarwoods. 

“I’ll wake up and this will still be their Whitestone, not mine,” Cassandra explained, tightening her hands to prevent the trembling from being visible. 

“This was always your Whitestone, Cassandra,” Pike told her.

Cassandra nodded without looking up from her hands. 

“What if I stand guard?” Pike suggested, feeling her cheeks warm slightly and she tried valiantly not to blush as she offered. It felt like something Scanlan would try to stay in a beautiful woman’s bedchamber while she slept.

“What?”

“If you want, um, I’ll stand guard and make sure to keep your dreams at bay,” Pike tried to clarify her offer. 

Cassandra was quiet just long enough that Pike was sure she had crossed some sort of boundary that she was never meant to. She was ready to take back what she had said and apologize when Cassandra broke the silence first.

“You would really do that?” Some of the strain in her features had relaxed at the prospect and the tiniest hint of a smile lit Cassandra’s eyes up enough that Pike thought she might just fall into them. 

“Ye-yeah,” Pike cleared her throat and smiled confidently. 

They walked together through the castle, Pike putting a little extra speed into it to keep up with Cassandra’s longer legs. Outside of the intimacy and privacy of the library Cassandra’s expression had gone up like walls, keeping staff and anyone else in the castle see the vulnerability that Pike had gotten close to touching. 

“Should I get my shield and mace?” Pike asked.

Cassandra laughed. It wasn’t the tearful, slightly damp laughter from the library but full and revealing the more playful side of her personality that Pike occasionally had glimpses of. Even if Pike had been perfectly serious in her offer to gear up to guard Cassandra’s sleep, her laughter was enough of a reward in itself. 

Pike politely directed her eyes out to see what sort of view Cassandra had in her rooms while the other woman changed. Her windows overlooked not the town of Whitestone but the mountains. The gnome reached over and drew a tiny symbol of Sarenrae in the fog from her breath; it would be invisible most of the time and gone when the staff cleaned the glass, but for now Sarenrae would protect Cassandra’s dreams as well. 

“Pike?” Cassandra asked from by the bed, her voice so soft it was nearly muffled by the rustling of bedding. 

“Cassie?” Pike turned to her now.

“You’ll stay, won't you? The whole time? You won't leave me?” She looked so young and vulnerable as she asked, settling under the blankets and pulling them up to her chin.

Pike pulled a chair over to the bedside and climbed up into it then crossed her arms beneath her chin on the side of the bed. “Grog couldn’t drag me away.”

Cassandra, soothed by the calm warmth of Pike and the slowly warming blankets of her bed smiled sleepily at Pike. The small cleric smiled back and reached one arm out to smooth her hair down. With the soothing sensation of the hand stroking her hair, Cassandra drifted off to sleep. She could have sworn, right as she did that the soft sound of the gnome humming reached her. 

****

 

Cassandra awoke with her brain blissfully muzzy with sleep. She was initially so fogged with sleep that it took her several minutes to work out what had roused her from sleep. For several years now when she actually let herself sleep, Cassandra usually woke herself with a start when the dreams began. 

What woke Cassandra was Pike sharply taking in a breath where her head was still cushioned on her arms. Unlike Cassandra, the cleric was still asleep, her face tense with whatever she was living in her dream. 

“Pike?” Cassandra reached over, putting one of her warm hands on Pike’s cool one. 

Pike sat up instantly and drew back. Her panic on coming out of the dream was strong enough she glowed slightly with summoned divine energy. 

“Oh. It’s okay Pike,” Cassandra pushed herself up on an elbow but didn’t reach for the gnome to try and calm her. She didn’t know how and she didn’t know what to tell her. That she was safe? That she was here? She didn’t know because no one had ever been there for her when she woke from a nightmare. 

Pike blinked, blue eyes focussing on Cassandra after several heartbeats. Cassandra swallowed and found herself nearly lost in those blue eyes. As cold as it was outside, Pike’s eyes were warm summer. 

“Oh, Cass, I’m sorry I fell asleep,” Pike said when she finally realized where she was and why. She rubbed a hand across her eyes and looked away from Cassandra, her breathing still short and unsteady. 

“Are, um. Are you okay?” Cassandra started to reach across the space between them but pulled her hand back before Pike could notice. 

“Nn- I. Yeah. Just a minute,” Pike mumbled as she tried to hide her face. 

“Pike.”

The sound of her name made Pike look up and Cassandra could see that she was, indeed, attempting to surreptitiously hide tears in her eyes. 

“What was it?” Cassandra asked as she tucked the hand that had reached for Pike beneath her leg. 

“I just-” For one moment it seemed as though Pike’s careful mask of calm was going to hold even if it was frayed at the edges. “I’m so w-worried about everyone, all the time. What if- what if someone dies and I’m not there to bring them back? It’s terrible dying,” she said and had a hard time stopping the words once they started. At the last statement, Pike visibly shivered. The mask of calm dropped completely as she spoke and Pike began crying; her hand covered her face as she did. 

“Come here,” Cassandra said, trying for a suggestion and ending up somewhere closer to a command. 

Pike looked up at her, and Cassandra felt a bit of pink coming to her cheeks. She hadn’t known what to do earlier but it had slowly been settling on her what it was she would have wanted after waking up from a nightmare. It was hard to put into words, even in her own mind, that she wanted someone to hold her and let her know it was going to be okay. There was a little skip of her heart as she shifted her weight and opened her arms indicating what she meant to Pike without words.

The gnome bit her lip and took a long, shuddery breath before accepting Cassandra’s invitation. Cassandra was still warm from being snug in the blankets and goosebumps shot across her skin as the cooler shape of Pike settled against her. Her own picked up a pace or two and she knew it was more than the change of temperature. She wrapped herself around the smaller shape of Pike who tucked against her shoulder. The sudden warmth and empathy brought a freshet of tears from the cleric.

Cassandra rubbed her back, quiet and letting Pike’s tears run their course. 

“I don’t have anyone else, Cass, I can’t lose them,” Pike told her in a damp voice muffled against her nightdress.

“No one?” Cassandra asked, pulling away just enough to look down at Pike. 

The cleric looked up and it was startling how close they were to one another now. Cassandra leaned down at the precise moment Pike reached up to pull her into a kiss and their lips met with the fire of heightened emotions. Though Cassandra had been holding Pike the positioning changed and the way her hands held the gnome’s slender waist held a completely different meaning. She’d been aware of her breathing and her warmth but she was now keenly conscious of the curve of her hip and how her own heart raced in response to all of these things. 

“Lady de Rolo?” someone knocked before stepping into the outer sitting room of Cassandra’s chambers. Pike and Cassandra froze like two teenagers, trying to quiet heavy breaths that sounded thunderous to them. “I’ve brought you a hot breakfast. I heard that Vox Machina has come through the Sun Tree, will you need help dressing?”

Cassandra had to start twice, her voice breaking off at first and then carrying more clearly to the servant in the outer room. “No, thank you Juliana. I’ll be out sho-ortly.” Her voice rose in pitch almost comically mid-sentence as Pike succeeded in stealthing closer to kiss her neck. 

“Very well, ma’am,” the servant could be heard moving around the sitting room a moment longer, opening curtains to let the crystalline winter sunlight in.

There was a moment in which both Cassandra and Pike looked at one another before they broke into laughter and Pike nearly fell off the bed. 

“I should get ready,” Pike said before slipping off the bed more gracefully. 

“Pike,” Cassandra also slid out of bed and shook her hair back. 

They closed the distance and kissed so soft that Cassandra thought she might have imagined it this time. But the memory of Pike’s hands on her neck, her shoulders, her arms, her waist, none of those were something she had made up. 

“We’ll talk later, okay?” Pike promised, standing on her toes to meet Cassandra part way. 

“Yeah,” Cassandra smiled, intimate and close before straightening up. 

Pike peeked out of the bedroom to make sure that the servant had left. Cassandra watched her go and then walked to one of the windows in her room and swept the curtains open to let the light in. The sky was brilliantly blue and she found herself smiling, which was unusual for her in the mornings. Cassandra’s eyes fell on a tiny symbol of Sarenrae drawn on one of the lower panes of the window and laughed softly. 

Cassandra turned away from the view and began to dress. She was finally ready to take on Winter’s Crest.


End file.
